Triangle pose, or trikonasana, is a common pose in yoga; one that many people know the name of, and yet it is notoriously difficult to find the right alignment.
Too often in this pose the ego takes over and we strive for the floor which misaligns the hips which potentially results in pinching in the lower back.
So how can you fix it?
Below are my key pointers for finding your alignment in Trikonasana
1. Don’t take the hand too low on the front leg
Start with placing the hand just below the knee and work from here. The placement of the lower hand is usually the key to whether your triangle pose is aligned or not. If our hand is too low the top hip will fall forward and not be stacked above the lower hip
2. Imagine you are between two narrow walls
In Trikonasana you want to imagine you are trying to fit between two walls. You want the shoulders and hips stacked one above the other, almost like that feeling when you have packed too close the car next to you and you’re trying to squeeze out of your door!
3. Watch the back foot
Sometimes the back foot can be a troublemaker in triangle pose. Just be sure the toes of the back foot are just less than 90 degrees from the front of the mat, that the outer edge of the back foot firms to the floor and that the front heel is inline with the arch/heel of the back foot. All of these slight adjustments will help you to stack the top hip and keep the back leg strong to support the hip, knee and even lower back.
4. Check the front knee
The front knee is often a tricky bit of triangle pose. If your hamstrings are tight you might want to bend the knee slightly, but the knee shouldn’t be fully bent, that is actually another pose! Then there is the possibility that instead of bending the knee too much you are straightening it too much. This is common in people with hypermobility. You want the knee to be in a neutral position, not locked out.
Give these small adjustments a go when you next do triangle pose and see how it changes your form